


Stars and Swords

by RavenclawProngs



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:18:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4263036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenclawProngs/pseuds/RavenclawProngs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA: Steven Caldwell is a Space Knight</p><p>You have to pick your battles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars and Swords

Caldwell is not as much of an asshole as everyone likes to paint him. He didn’t really want _Sheppard’s_ job so much—it’s just that the job he was in was so bad he’d take _anything_ else. He desperately needed a change of scenery and when they offered him Atlantis, hey, Steven’s no dummy. And this is _Atlantis._ He’s secretly always wanted to explore space and so he fought, _hard,_ for the position of military head of Atlantis but when he didn’t get it they gave him a _space ship_ instead so he’s happy. Really, he is, and even though he often disagrees with the way Sheppard does things, he can’t deny that Sheppard’s done a good job and is probably the only one Atlantis _wants_ as head of her military (and he means the city itself, not the people—they very obviously want Sheppard and only Sheppard)—Atlantis has not been good to heads of military who are not Sheppard but intend to stay.

He never tells people this, lets them think what they want instead because if there’s one thing he’s learned from McKay it’s that you have to pick and choose whose opinions you let matter because no matter how good you are there will always be someone who doesn’t like you. His suspicions sound superstitious even to himself but Steven’s believed in aliens ever since he was six and his mother told him there were billions and billions of stars, and planets around those stars. That’s when he decided he wanted to be an astronaut, wanted to go to those stars, visit those planets because with so many, how could Earth be the only one with intelligent life? Steven stopped believing priests at age six, too, because they didn’t make as much sense as his mom, who hated going to church and stopped when his dad got shot out of the sky, gave away all but one of her nice dresses and pairs of formal shoes. Most of his memories of his mother feature peasant skirts and bare feet as she told him fantastic stories about dragons and princesses and ogres. Right up until he decided he wanted to travel the stars, Steven wanted to be a knight, galloping off to rescue people and slay dragons.

He ignores the whispered bus driver jokes at the SGC and the (less and less frequent) stares in Atlantis (the stares are worse—everyone tells jokes but those stares say _infiltrator,_ they say _usurper_ and _you aren’t welcome_ ); he holds his head high and defends his people and his ship and tries not to look askance at the personnel that leave Atlantis forever on his ship—the ones who walk aboard on their own power and don’t look back. He tries not to wonder if they just couldn’t cut it or if Atlantis cut _them_. He knows he’ll never really be a Lantean but he’s not really Tau’ri anymore either. He’s okay with that—he’s a new kind of astronaut, a new kind of knight, and knights and astronauts both belong to something outside that which they serve.


End file.
